The genius of William Shawn

Allen Shawn was interviewed about his father on Fresh Air a while back [0]. The interview always stuck with me (I still remember it all these years later) as Allen spoke intimately and personally about his father's life and the fact that he had two families at one time.

A somewhat related fun fact: The New Yorker was founded by Harold Ross [1], a Coloradoan from Aspen, but long before it was the glitzy ski town it is today.

[0] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=749494...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Ross

William was the father of the actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (perhaps best known as the "Inconceivable!" guy from The Princess Bride, although he probably would consider his play The Designated Mourner or his performance in My Dinner with Andre as more important).

One thing I remember about The New Yorker under Shawn is how strange it could be. Through page after page of advertisements for perfumes and fine china and etched crystal were threaded long columns of ambitious journalism, literary essays, reporting on horse races and Ivy League football, and often surreal fiction. And cartoons, of course. The short pieces in “The Talk of the Town” section were written in the editorial we, as in “We put our hand in our pocket” (quoted from memory); the names of the actual writers did not appear. Even Shawn himself was not identified as the magazine’s editor.

I loved that New Yorker.